Hung Truong: The Blog!

Grad School Update: Michigan

I was accepted to the University of Michigan School of Information a few days ago, and I just got an email regarding my scholarship. They’re offering me a half tuition merit scholarship which reduces my tuition to the same that a resident would pay (around $7000 a semester).

This is pretty cool! They’re also going to pay for me to fly over there and visit the school on March 24-26. I have the Google College Day thing on the 23rd though. Maybe I can just fly over there directly from California. I’m gonna be tired when I get back!

As for the whole grad school thing, if the Google thing works out, I may decide to not go to grad school. I’m definitely keeping my options open, though. The scholarship offer from Michigan makes it feasible (at least, I think) for me to go to school there. If I get some kind of assistantship or maybe a paid internship (Google has an office in Ann Arbor), I could make it work.

All in all, I’m very happy to have options, as they help to keep my stress levels down (if one thing doesn’t work I could go to the next, etc). I’ll post updates as soon as I get them.

Always Have Exact Change With Only 10 Coins!

I hate having spare change. Change sucks because it usually just sits in your house and it’s a waste of money. I found a way to use the change you have and never get change back when purchasing with cash. With a set of just 10 coins, you can make change for any amount from 1 cent to 99.

I’ve already read about the 10 coins somewhere else online. It’s not really interesting to have the answer given to you. Since I’m a nerdy computer scientist, I was trying to come up with an algorithm to produce this set of coins. I came up with an iterative solution that goes like this:

Start out with no coins.

From 1 to 99 cents:

If you can make exact change for the current amount, go to the next amount.

Otherwise, try adding the largest denomination coin to your set of coins (a quarter) that will allow you to pay the exact amount. If it’s too big, go to the next smallest until you hit a penny.

End Loop.

I came up with this in the shower. When I got out and tried it, it actually worked! Here’s a portion of the trace through the loop:

No coins, I need to make change for 1 cent. Add a penny. Yay, I can make change for one cent!

…

4 pennies, need to make change for 5 cents. Add a nickel.

…

4 pennies 1 nickel, need to make change for 10 cents. Add a dime.

And so on. I believe the algorithm works because it uses a greedy heuristic of choosing the largest denomination coin first before defaulting to the penny. Am I a nerd? Yes.

Oh, I just realized I didn’t actually say which 10 coins were the ones you need. They’re 4 pennies, one nickel, two dimes, and three quarters. You can also do it with two nickels and one dime but that’s not what my algorithm came up with, plus two dimes are lighter than two nickels!

Have fun getting rid of your change!

Toothpaste For Dinner: Awesome Webcomic

So I thought I had written about this before, but looking back, I haven’t. Toothpaste For Dinner is a crazy awesome minimalist webcomic by Drew. It’s not always funny, but when it is, it’s super funny!

Um, and I bought a Toothpaste For Dinner shirt recently, so that’s why I thought of it. Okay, that’s it.

PS2 – Karaoke Revolution Party Review

I got Karaoke Revolution Party in December for around $10 at Toys R Us. It was a pretty sweet deal. I already had a microphone from Socom, so I figured I wouldn’t need an extra mic. Luckily it worked.

So the basic premise of Karaoke Revolution is that you sing songs, and you get more points if you sing in tune with the correct vocals. There are note “tubes” that show up indicating whether you’re singing too low or high. It’s not quite like reading music or anything, but I guess it’s pretty good for public use.

I really like the idea of playing a game with only your voice. It’s a pretty interesting idea and I’m kind of mad that I waited so long to finally buy a Karaoke Revolution game. I sort of secretly wanted to buy it ever since seeing these guys playing it.

The gameplay isn’t perfect, though. It seems like the game has an easier time recognizing pitch in higher octaves, so if you’re a guy, you already have a disadvantage to the girls. Also, the game is really strict in telling you exactly how to sing a song. So when I add some “soul” it ends up costing me points. Boo! It’d be pretty sweet if the game could detect freestyling and reward players for doing it well. I guess that would be pretty hard though.

The song selection is varied. There’s a lot of songs from the 80s up to current popular songs. They even have Neil Diamond, which my brother was happy about. I think most people will find at least one song they’d be interesting in singing, if they’re interested in singing a song to begin with.

Overall, Karaoke Revolution Party is a pretty cool party game. I wish I had bought two mics so I could test out the versus and duet modes. I think there’s some duets… Maybe I’ll buy the new American Idol version.

Google Update: Invitation to Google College Days

So I got an email back from Google the Monday after my interview, but I hadn’t posted anything about it. They invited me to their Google College Days, which I’ve actually never heard of before. It seems pretty cool. Here’s part of the email they sent:

Congratulations, your on-campus interviews went well and we would like to invite you to Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, CA for a College Day!

Google College Days are fun! We’ll fly you out before the interviews, provide lodging and transport you to Google on Friday morning for a full day visit and then fly you back home. You’ll be on site from 8:45 AM - 3:15 PM on Friday. Below is the agenda for our College Days.

8:45 AM Depart to Google (we’ll pick you up from your hotel)

9:15 AM Arrive Google and Check-In

9:30 AM Kick Off (executive sponsor to speak and kick off the day, coffee and pastries)

10:15 AM Interviews (3, 45 minute technical interviews). Please note: You will be asked questions to test your coding, algorithm and design skills. You might want to refer to labs.google.com to learn more about our products in beta.

12:05 PM Tour of the Googleplex

12:50 Lunch at the Google Cafe with engineers

1:45 PM Organized Free Time (have a chair massage, chat with other students)

2:15 PM Q&A/Closing (Engineers and Recruiters show up to answer questions about life at Google and the hiring process, etc.)

2:45 PM Ice Cream Social (Build a sundae and chat with other students, Google Engineers and Recruiters)

3:15 PM Depart to hotel (we’ll transport you back to your hotel)

This is way too cool. I think it’s the dream of every nerd to visit the Googleplex, and to be flown out there (for free) for a tour, food, and interviews is just plain awesome. The fact that they’re interviewing me for a position is like icing on the cake for a nerd like myself. I wonder if I’ll be allowed to take pictures… It’d make an awesome blog post.

I’ll be attending their March 23rd one, since it’s the date with the least conflict for me. Hopefully everything will go well and I’ll be able to visit the Googleplex on a more regular basis. Like every weekday or so…